Show solidarity with migrants, refugees at Saturday pilgrimage, service

This is a time of great and increasing uncertainty for immigrants living among us, whatever their citizenship or country of origin. In fact, it is an extremely difficult time for the marginalized and members of minorities living among us, whether they were born in this country or not.

While immigrants from some countries have been welcomed over the years, too often refugee and immigrants from other countries have faced indifference or hostility. This has happened while we have often relied on them to do difficulty and sometimes dangerous jobs for long hours and for very low wages. [How about if the good Catholics find them work other than in low wage meat and poultry plants!—ed]

Recent changes in immigration and enforcement policies have left many of these people with very little sense of security or, sometimes, hope. Those of us in more fortunate circumstances must, in conscience, step up and offer them both expressions of solidarity and practical help. [How about some serious practical help without the showboating!—ed]

One important chance to express solidarity is the “Share the Journey with Migrant, Refugee, and Marginalized Sisters and Brothers” pilgrimage taking place Saturday, Oct. 20, starting at 10 a.m. at the Courthouse Plaza and ending at Historic St Paul Catholic Church, where there will be a brief service, beginning with song and dance by our Congolese sisters and brothers. [They love to bring out the refugees as props for their political message!—ed]

The intention of the event is “to promote a just and inclusive community, especially in this climate of enhanced danger for immigrants, refugees, and the marginalized. We stand together, walk together, and pray together as a public witness to the dignity of the human person and the obligation we have as companions on the journey to accompany one another and build the culture of encounter.” [They have that social justice lingo down pat, don’t they!—ed]

This event is sponsored by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lexington with Lexington UNITED Interfaith Encounters, Catholic Charities, The Catholic Action Center and others.

Kentucky is a ‘welcoming state’!

What do the Kentucky refugee admission numbers look like?

When I wrote this post yesterday, I learned that Kentucky ranks #14 in the list of states with the most resettled refugees.

In fact, according to Wrapsnet, since October of 2008, Kentucky ‘welcomed’ 16,901 refugees!

Here is a list of the top twelve countries whose refugees, Catholics and other ‘religious’ resettlement agencies, have added to Kentucky’s diversity (mostly chosen by the UN).

See first Syrians arrive in KY in 2015 with the help of an Islamic charity. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2015/02/15/first-syrian-refugees-arriving-in-louisville-ky-helped-with-grant-from-islamic-charity/

Burma (3,964)

DR Congo (3,040)

Bhutan (2,592)

Iraq (2,435)

Somalia (2,171)

Cuba (827)

Syria (495)

Sudan (231)

Burundi (210)

Eritrea (127)

Afghanistan (120)

Pakistan (107)

Go herefor my Kentucky archives. Don’t miss the story about the Iraqi refugees arrested a few years ago in Bowling Green, now doing life in prison on terrorism charges.

Like this:

Here is my solution for those doing Christian ‘charitable’ work for refugees—find more VOLUNTEERS!

Do Catholics have to be paid by taxpayers to do their religious charitable work, it sure sounds like it!

Everywhere I turn there is a new story about how that mean ol’ Donald Trump is cutting the funding to ‘non-profit’ ‘humanitarian’ groups who place refugees in your towns and cities. There are so many now I don’t post most of them.

This story, however, from Columbia, Missouri had a few nuggets of information, one in particular was new to me.

Refugee and Immigration Services, operated by Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri says it is being paid $4,000 a head per refugee it places. Yikes! That is almost twice any number we have ever seen for the per head payment.

Somali family welcomed to Columbia by Catholic Charities in wake of Trump 2017 ban. https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/somali-refugees-affected-by-the-travel-ban-arrive-in-columbia/article_f7645b92-f54b-11e6-a52c-ab441118728a.html

Cuts to refugee admissions hit Columbia resettlement agency

The staff at Refugee and Immigration Services has been under increasing pressure, given the caps President Donald Trump has placed on the number of refugees allowed to enter the country. Those diminishing caps result in less federal money for agencies that serve refugees.

[….]

The budget from fiscal 2017 to fiscal 2018 fell from $1 million to around $625,000, Dan Lester, director of Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri, said. The local office also went from staff of 11 to seven, with only four being full-time. That means more duties for fewer people.

I just had a look at a recent Form 990 for this Catholic agency and yes they did receive a million dollars of taxpayer money and approximately $793,000 of it went to salaries, benefits, and pension plans for employees!

The agency, which is funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has traditionally received about $4,000 per refugee to provide servicesduring their first six to 12 months in the country, Lester said.

Agencies must help provide:

Payment for their first six months of rent.

Clothing, food and all daily household items.

Assistance in finding a job.

Access to English classes.

Access to social programs they may need, such as counseling or SNAP benefits. [Other welfare—ed]

Orientation into an entirely new culture.

It seems to me that most of that list could be handled by volunteers and private donations!

The Missourian continues…

While the agency still gets its $4,000 per refugee, that funding doesn’t factor in those who came to Columbia in previous years and still rely on local services, Finn said. [That is funny because we are told repeatedly that refugees are self-sufficient and on their own in under 6 months. Hmmm!—ed]

“We just don’t have the time and energy to give the refugees that we used to,” Finn said. “Everyone has a lot more families to work with.”

“Time and energy” sounds like something they could get for free from volunteers!

Like this:

What is Monday? It is the beginning of the federal fiscal year. It is the first day of FY19. It is the day when the writing will be on the wall for many refugee resettlement offices around the country.

Dumb way to run an organization! Did no one in the refugee industry ever question a business model where some non-profits are 97% and up federally funded?

Why? Because in 1980 Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980 in to law and set up a house of cards that needs to fall now. Originally (supposedly!) designed as a public-private partnership, the federal government and ‘humanitarian’ non-profit groups were to share equally in the costs of admitting tens of thousands of refugees to the US each year.

But, over the years, because Congress has been so remiss in overseeing the program (the Rs want cheap labor!), those non-profit groups (aka federal contractors) have gotten fat and confident (like Aesop’s grasshopper) on ever larger amounts of federal funding and too lazy to raise sufficient amounts of private money to see them through if for any reason the number of paying clients/refugees declined.

(An aside: The inability to raise enough private money is also indicative of the fact that there isn’t enough interest by average Americans in financially supporting the program in the first place.)

So here we are with one story after another about what Monday will bring to dozens of resettlement contractors around the country.

From Austin, Texas we learn that a Catholic contractor—Caritas—is closing its refugee program.

EXCLUSIVE: As refugees dwindle, Caritas will end resettlement program

Since 1974, the organization has helped thousands of people fleeing war or persecution find a new life in Austin. But after 44 years, Caritas is ending its refugee resettlement program and as of Monday, it will no longer serve new refugees.

“It’s really a tragedy that this program has to go away,” said Jo Kathryn Quinn, executive director for Caritas.

[….]

For the past two years, Caritas has seen a sharp decline in the number of refugees arriving in Austin, and the development has made the program “financially unsustainable,” Quinn said. Between 2010 and 2016, Caritas resettled an average of 576 refugees each year. Since last October, Caritas has resettled 151 refugees, but the nonprofit has not received any new refugees since April.

“Having zero refugees arrive in two months was unheard of for us,” Quinn said. “It was the final alarm bell that told us that we couldn’t continue this way.”

[….]

In June, Caritas’ board of directors voted to close the program at the end of the fiscal year at the recommendation of the nonprofit’s executive leadership.

When fewer refugees arrive, less federal money comes in to support them as well. Refugees receive a one-time amount of $1,125 from federal funds for resettlement needs, including housing and food, said Adelita Winchester, Caritas’ director of integrated services. Caritas would supplement federal funds with about $1 million annually in philanthropic donations,Winchester said. [The reporter has missed an important piece of information. The refugee gets $1,125 and Caritas gets another $1,125 for themselves per refugee.—ed]

“We didn’t have any excess philanthropic dollars to shift to aid this program,” Quinn said.

Now to California…..

Budget Cuts, Layoffs And Closures Hit Refugee-Serving Organizations

Donna Duvin is executive director at the San Diego office of the national nonprofit International Rescue Committee, or IRC, one of nine federally funded resettlement agencies in the U.S. Duvin said the local office’s VESL funding dropped by 34 percent this year forcing the agency to replace some paid instructors with volunteers and interns.

Red meat for readers! I love running this photo of the IRC’s David Miliband outside their Manhattan office. He is the Brit who is compensated at nearly $700,000 annually as he calls the shots about who will be placed in your towns.

“As the numbers began to fall, the support that we had from the county that passed through dollars from the federal government, those declined as well,” Duvin said.

Duvin said in past years more than three-fourths of the agency’s budget relied on government dollars, causing a loss of millions as the office’s arrivals dipped by 85.5 percent since 2016. She said the budget changes during that time forced the agency to eliminate 15 positions.

Apparently the IRC is trying to raise private money to keep some functions going. LOL! Maybe CEO David Miliband could give up some of his nearly $700,000 in annual salary to keep some low-level staffers in a job!

The IRC is not alone.

A representative for the national resettlement agency Church World Service estimated it lost possibly hundreds of staffers when it closed 10 offices after it was forced to merge operations with other organizations in some U.S. cities. And a spokesman for World Relief said it laid off 140 employees after shutting down five offices across the U.S.

If you are looking for something to do, go to this list from last year of the resettlement agencies working in your towns and cities and call them. See if they are still in operation, or plan to close soon.

Reminder!

The 1980 structure of the US Refugee Admissions Program is still in place and the Trump Administration must push now for a complete reform of the program or in 2021 or 2025, it will be full steam ahead for these contractors. They will quickly staff-up and a new President could say—We must make up for the lost Trump years and quadruple the numbers of refugees coming in.

Like this:

One Oregon protesting Donald Trump in Portland, OR in January 2017 http://www.oneoregon.org/who-we-are/

However, a couple of things in this otherwise ho-hum news story make it worth posting.

First, because Catholic Charities of Oregon (a refugee agency subcontractor of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops) isn’t getting in massive new waves of fresh refugee clients, they are focusing on better care for the ones they resettled earlier and that is a good thing.

However, when they list their efforts at job training and mental health counseling it got me thinking—who is paying for that!

It is probably the taxpayer again, but because Catholic Charities of Oregon considers itself a church they are not required to file an IRS Form 990 so that we could find out exactly how many taxpayer dollars are flowing to them.

We know that in addition to the per head payment resettlement agencies receive from you there are myriad taxpayer-funded grants at the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, grants like this one, that keep resettlement contractors afloat. (I think I need to start having a look at those!)

One more of many reforms that Congress (or the President) should undertake is to require these so-called ‘religious’ charities to file Form 990s. (By the way, some Catholic Charities do file a Form 990, but the one featured at Catholic News Agencydoes not.)

Like this:

I’m happy to report on a letter-to-the-editor at Syracuse.com because I had meant to post on the original article that generated this reader’s letter and never got around to it.

Letter-writer George Checksfield is referring to an article, here, in which we learn that the State of New York is plugging the “hole” created by lost federal revenue for Catholic Charities (from you really, the taxpayer).

He wants to know why does a private group like this need taxpayer dollars to hold on to employees they don’t need.

In 2014, Syracuse’s Holy Trinity Catholic Church became a mosque and these Catholic Charities refugee pushers don’t even get what is happening to them. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/syracuse-refugee-group-buys-catholic-church-will-be-converted-to-a-mosque/

The mainstream media rarely makes the connection clear to the average taxpaying citizen reading a story like this that there is a direct relationship between the number of refugees being brought in and Catholic Charities of Onondaga County (this one and many others throughout the US) budget.

Their payments from the feds are based on how many refugees the agency places. It is a per refugee head basis and so big families bring in bigger bucks to CC (sorry for the zillionith time I’ve repeated that!).

When the President reduced the number of refugees being admitted to the US, it caused all these federal contractors to see their budgets shrink.

Like this:

“I wanted to come here, have a nice house, a car, but they kill your son,” she said. “They broke my heart. They killed me, too.”

(Mother questioning why she ever came from the DR Congo to Chicago)

Stories are increasingly showing up in the media about refugees placed by federally funded resettlement agencies in to cheap housing in dangerous neighborhoods.

17-year-old Darlis was shot and killed in Chicago

Yesterday I postedthis story from San Antonio, and reader ‘ganjagrandma’ sent another story from last week about Milwaukee, Chicago and Rockford, Illinois where not only were refugees placed in slum housing, but were targets of violence and murder in the neighborhoods where they were placed.

Of course, I am a little suspicious about this spate of stories because I think what it is leading to is a demand for more federal money for refugee agencies and an opportunity to blame Donald Trump yet again for being heartless.

You need to know a couple of things before I go on with this latest news on the subject.

Like this:

And, this time rather than the International Rescue Committee getting the blame (as they did in California), it is Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

Catholic refugee agency worker:

The charity’s “model of resettlement has not really changed for 20, 30 years. They still basically do what they’re required to do, but they don’t do any more.”

Jose Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Catholic Charities San Antonio says the agency received $7.5 million in 2016 from the federal government to help 1,900 refugees. What! Over $3,900 for every man woman and child!

Sounds like they are taking in more refugees than they can adequately provide for!!!

Not enough decent housing that is also cheap they wail. But, I have noticed over the years that the answer is never that there might be too many refugees entering the US!

And, with rich agencies like Catholic Charities, maybe they could pony-up with some of their own private Christian-charity dollars rather than depending on the US taxpayer to supply them with more!

As I reported here, just yesterday, Texas is the number one refugee-welcoming state in the nation right now!

Sounds like Texas, and its stable of ‘charities’, are ‘welcoming’ more refugees than they can adequately provide for!!!